page_title: Territorial evolution of Poland
section_title: 1938
hierarchical_section_title: Territorial evolution of Poland / Second Polish Republic and occupation 1918 to 1945 / 1938
caption_attribution_description: Poland 1938
context_page_description: Poland is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the ninth largest in Europe.
  From a nucleus between the Odra and Vistula rivers on the North-Central European Plain, Poland has at its largest extent expanded as far as the Baltic, the Dnieper, the Black Sea and the Carpathians, while in periods of weakness it has shrunk drastically or even ceased to exist.
context_section_description: As Czechoslovakia was being absorbed into the German Reich, Zaolzie, the Czech half of Cieszyn, was annexed by Poland in 1938 following the Munich Agreement and the First Vienna Award. At noon on September 30, Poland gave an ultimatum to the Czechoslovak government. It demanded the immediate evacuation of Czech troops and police from Zaolzie and gave Prague until noon the following day. At 11:45 a.m. on October 1 the Czech foreign ministry called the Polish ambassador in Prague and told him that Poland could have what it wanted. Poland was accused of being an accomplice of Nazi Germany. 
  Poland seized land from northern Spisz and northern Orawa, including territories around Suchá Hora and Hladovka, around Javorina, around Leśnica in the Pieniny Mountains, a small territory around Skalité, and some other very small border regions. They officially received the territories on 1 November 1938. Polish military groups began to carry out assimilation of the population. Polish was introduced as the only official language and the Slovak Intelligence were displaced from the territories.
caption: Territories in red seized by Poland.
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